The Kid

Rating:R
Runtime: 1 hour, 40 minutes
Director: Vincent D’Onofrio

Quick Impressions:
I loved this movie. My husband showed me a trailer on YouTube a couple of weeks ago, and I was hooked instantly. Dane DeHaan as Billy the Kid, Ethan Hawke as Pat Garrett, plus Chris Pratt and Adam Baldwin?

You had me at Dane DeHaan.

Doesn’t he seem perfectly cast as Billy the Kid? I still think J.J. Abrams and company made a mistake not casting DeHaan as some next generation Skywalker. To me, he has always looked (and acted) like a young Skywalker who has spent a little too much time on the Dark Side of the Force. He also looks like Billy the Kid. I mean, I didn’t know the Kid personally (though I’ve seen his famous ferrotype). I know he shot a bunch of of people, died when he was just 21, and got arrested in San Dimas, California, for tearing up a shopping mall with Bob Genghis Khan, Maxine of Arc, and Socrates Johnson. (My knowledge of his exploits comes mainly from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.) As a child, I didn’t like Westerns (unless you count the Zorro serial on reruns of the original Mickey Mouse Club, and I don’t see why you would). Recently, though, the Old West has started to appeal to me tremendously, probably because I spend my days rolling around in bluebonnets, and the back road to our house is flanked with horses, cattle, and busted fences. Also, lately the Old West seems to be populated increasingly with actors I find appealing.

Quite honestly, though, The Kid feels like a bit of a throwback. Make no mistake, this is not some kind of edgy spin on the tired old Western. This is the tired old Western. The thing is, with young(ish), big-name actors giving energetic, committed performances, the good ol’ Western no longer seems so tired.

Recently so impressive in First Reformed, Ethan Hawke is excellent in this film playing Pat Garrett, famous for something that is unfortunately a light spoiler. In a much smaller (and stranger) (and over-the-top villainous) role, Chris Pratt is far-removed from his usual Harrison Ford lite persona which feels like a great move career wise. (I love what they’ve done to his teeth! To bad for him he met Pat Garrett instead of Doc Holiday.) Newcomer Jake Shur gives a reasonably moving debut performance. And as Billy the Kid, Dane DeHaan is simply sensational. (This film certainly isn’t positioned to win Oscars, but DeHaan’s vibrant performance seems destined to remain a highlight of his own filmography.)

Though I’m quite familiar with Vincent D’Onfrio as an actor (from his work on Law & Order: Criminal Intent, to his efforts to weaponize Chris Pratt’s dinosaurs, to his providing “an E’gar suit” for aliens to wear to fight the Men in Black), I’ve never seen anything he’s directed before. But even though The Kid has its weaknesses (the final act is a bit anticlimactic), I honestly loved it so much I would happily watch anything D’Onfrio directs in the future.

This is a great, character-driven story of peril and adventure in the Old West. I was invested from scene one and found the whole story highly engaging (if not earth shattering). The Kid is nothing new, but it’s good, entertaining (and sometimes even moving).

The Good:

The title The Kid may refer to Billy, but it also references a young boy named Rio who has blundered into the well documented interactions of Billy and his friend Pat Garrett. (I considered calling Garrett Billy’s “former friend,” but I think they remain friends to the end from a certain point of view, kind of the way the Joker sometimes considers Batman bound to him.)

So here we get two stories for the price of one. We get the thrilling Old West legend of the notorious Billy the Kid and Sheriff Pat Garrett, the man dedicated to bringing him to justice. And we get the less legendary but more personal story of a tormented boy and his sister, running from (and pursued by) an abusive past.

Basically the movie is about how narrative can create meaning. We may become immortal in the stories that people tell about us after we’re gone. But from a practical point of view, the stories that we tell ourselves about ourselves help to determine our future.

As I’ve said, DeHaan’s performance as Billy is the best thing about the movie, and Hawke’s turn as Pat Garrett is a close runner up. The other performances are good, too. Adam Baldwin is a great scene partner for Billy, and Leila George is compelling as Rio’s sister Sara. I wish we got a more complete picture of her side of the story. (I mean, I understand what is happening with her, but I’d like a more complete interior picture. If she’s going to be in the story, she needs more time and development.) Ben Dickey (star of Ethan Hawke’s Blaze) is also good in a supporting role.

Essentially most characters in the film are role models that Rio tries on while attempting to find himself. Each one has a different take on the stories we have to tell ourselves in order to survive. One of my favorite aspects of the film is the way people keep recounting stories of their past. That ol’ “first man I ever killed” story can tell you a lot about a man’s character and psychological make-up.

The story is engaging, the characters are compelling, and the look and feel of the Old West is present in every scene. I’m curious about the film’s score because I noticed the opening credits say that the music is both written and performed by Latham and Shelby Gaines (who are brothers, as it turns out). That “performed by” credit seems unusual to me. I noticed the score most during one funeral scene. Some of the strains seemed so spooky, mimicking human wailing. (I thought, “Are they using a theremin, too?” First Man has made me forever suspicious that a theremin might show up in movie scores at any time. I doubt that they are, but the mimicry of human lamentation is nice.) I wonder what instruments exactly they are playing.

The first half of this film is full of such passionate intensity. I felt the strain of the brother and sister’s dilemma and fear so acutely. I loved the scenes of their flight in the darkness (and particularly enjoyed the work of cinematographer Matthew J. Lloyd in those sequences).

Best Scene:

DeHaan’s Billy is the best thing about the film, but he’s all over the place, a part of many scenes. I enjoyed three scenes equally. Two are parallel scenes in which Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid tell Rio about the first time they ever killed a man (once in the daytime, and once at night, tellingly).

Perhaps the best part of the film comes when Rio “robs the bank.” This scene is powerful, and the two separate storylines converge here perfectly for just a brief moment.

Best Scene Visually:

We see some lovely New Mexican landscape, but the shot that sticks with me is Rio scrambling around and leaping onto the scaffold during the hanging scene.

I also enjoyed the look of the scene in which Garrett silently stalks around the moonlit compound. (It reminded me of Zero Dark Thirty, actually.)

Best Action Sequence:

Billy’s big escape is one of the best scenes in the film. Not only is it thrilling to watch, but we begin to see so many different sides of the character.

The Negatives:
Dane DeHaan brings the crackling energy that makes the movie so electric and exciting. In that respect, he’s kind of like Heath Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight. Yes, the entire cast of that movie is fantastic, but you’re watching to see what the Joker will do next.

Unfortunately The Kid runs out of Billy before The Dark Knight runs out of Joker. And the scenes not featuring DeHaan are just not as…good, I guess? (For a while there, even when DeHaan is not on screen, he’s still preoccupying our thoughts and driving the forward progress of the movie.)

The final third (maybe it’s not quite that much) of The Kid just feels somewhat lacking. Now as a writer, I must say that Rio’s story is told well. His decisions in these late scenes make a lot of sense. Rio’s interactions with Garrett, his seeming espousal (and perhaps manipulation of) Garrett’s world view brings the boy’s story to a (fairly) satisfying conclusion.

The biggest problem, though, is that the movie is telling us a story about a kid named Rio. He happens to wander into the story of Billy the Kid and observe (and react) to it for a while, but we are ultimately following Rio’s story (which we tend to forget when Billy is onscreen). And Rio’s story (though very well told and featuring some great lessons on character formation, myth building, and life choices) is just not as interesting as Billy’s. The best thing about this movie is the wonderful energy in the interactions between Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett. That relationship is so spellbinding it deserves its own movie. Forget about this Rio kid. Let’s just watch Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett, from the beginning of their relationship to the end. The movie would be better if it began when they first met and ended at their final encounter.

But the movie we’re given is good, too. It just feels more like an adaptation of YA historical fiction. Imagine, a teen protagonist can’t figure out how to solve a conflict with a kid at school until he suddenly travels back in time and witnesses the duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr which teaches him a lesson that helps him figure out his own life. This type of premise is pretty classic. And the film does a great job of telling Rio’s story. The narrative is solid and well structured. Rio tries on role models, discovers his own way, and learns how to tell himself the story of the life he wants.

The thing is, a movie focused on Billy’s story instead would be more interesting (and probably more satisfying in the end, too). Imagine if the Joker just disappeared from The Dark Knight halfway through the story. That is actually what happens in The Dark Knight Rises, I guess. (And it’s not as good, is it?)

Is Rio Cutler a real person? Some aspects of his life are so neat and convenient that I tend to think not. But his family is so weird. (This keeps nagging at me. I’m positive I’ve heard of a Rio Kid, but I don’t know if that’s a real or fictional character. I think the Rio Kid is legendary, but I’m not sure if he’s in any way related to this Jake Shur character. My guess is no, but I worry my ignorance is making a fool of me. This is why I should have watched more Westerns growing up.)

Either way, there’s one incident at the end of the movie that gave me pause. For a tension filled moment, I wondered if something were about to happen. (You know how it goes when a horse breaks his leg.) As I watched, I felt genuinely convinced that a scene would go a certain way, and simultaneously certain that I was misreading the moment and just being stupid. After the movie, though, as my husband and I chatted in the car, I discovered that he’d had the very same suspicions. Perhaps the suggestion, then, is intentional. Maybe we’re meant to wonder (which is a nice touch if it’s intentional). Personally, I think the film would have had a stronger ending if what I had feared had happened.

As it is, the very end of the movie feels a bit lacking in heft and honestly quite uncertain. Jake Shur’s Rio is obviously just our way into this story. If we’re not allowed to see precisely what Rio himself will become, then we should at least get the end of Pat’s story. I also wanted a bit more resolution for Sara. I don’t mind if a movie leaves us with some questions and doesn’t tie up all the loose ends. But I want it to end with a bang, and this one ends with a whimper. I won’t deny it’s well structured and dedicated to the idea of creating a narrative to live by and to be remembered by (which is what the historical Pat Garrett actually did by publishing a history of Billy’s life). It just doesn’t feel satisfying, though.

I also think Chris Pratt’s character is awfully strange. With a backstory and a manner like his, perhaps he deserves to be in the story a bit more (or perhaps he doesn’t. Maybe that’s the whole point. He didn’t give enough thought to turning his life into legend. Now he’s reduced to a footnote in a minor retelling).

Overall:

I find the last part of The Kid anticlimactic. A lot of stuff happens, and it should feel powerful, but it doesn’t. Still, I loved the film and look forward to buying it in the future. The Kid is just a Western, but Dane DeHaan is fantastic as the infamous young outlaw, and Ethan Hawke makes a pretty great Pat Garrett, too. I don’t care what flaws the movie has. Their performances along with the film’s emphasis on the power of narrative and the pain of self discovery make The Kid a winner for me. I think most people would enjoy watching this movie. It’s my favorite of 2019 so far, but keep in mind that nothing too good ever comes out in January or February.

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